


Transcendent, Pure

by loveandrockmusic



Category: Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
Genre: Courage, Crying, F/M, Goodbyes, Heartbreak, Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-03
Updated: 2019-12-03
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:53:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21654058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loveandrockmusic/pseuds/loveandrockmusic
Summary: The tide of love sweeps in and rises over, but must flow out again.
Relationships: Caspian/Lucy Pevensie
Comments: 6
Kudos: 19
Collections: Lucian Exchange 2019





	Transcendent, Pure

**Author's Note:**

  * For [a_la_grecque](https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_la_grecque/gifts).



> A few times below I use the word “purity”. I’d like to state emphatically that this is **NOT** meant in a ~sexual virtue, abstinent, purity culture-type way **AT ALL**. Divorce the creepy evangelical overtones! I’m using purity in the Last Battle-ish way. You know the part where Clive says something about seeing a window reflected in a mirror? “Yet at the same time they were somehow different – deeper, more wonderful … every rock and flower and blade of grass looked as if it meant more.” THAT kind of purity, folks. Purity of spirit, of essence, of truth. Purity like the pinnacle of clarity and joy in knowing something so deeply. Lucian purity, we’ll call it.

She’s in it before she even realizes it's happening at all. It’s like a coming out of dream; the touch of the dreamworld still around her skin, half-real, half-imagined, awareness settling slowly around her. When she finally looks up, she realizes it’s been there all along.

It’s in his eyes. The way he tilts his head when she tells a story. It’s how his shoulder brushes against hers when they are side-by-side; the smile he gives no one but her.

How they always seem to fall into step together or draw each other in a crowd. She can pick out Caspian’s voice before even her brother’s, and known Edmund how many decades now? It makes no sense at all. And yet, somehow, it does.

She’s had other lovers of course, many of them very dear. Men and women, naiads and wood-gods, even Bacchus himself. Princes came to Narnia’s shores to court her, determined to bring her home as their queen. She danced with them all and laughed away their promises. Nothing could tempt her away from her kingdom.

Not Caspian. They love the same things, have the same dreams.

His heart is so light. He laughs so freely, gives so generously; once, long ago, she lived like that.

And so her hands find his. He catches her eye and she doesn’t look away. On warm nights when everyone sleeps on the deck below the stars, they stay awake and talk until dawn. Lately Caspian has taken to kissing her hands. She’s done nothing at all to discourage it.

Lucy knows, deep down, that Caspian has never lost as she has lost, nor grieved as she has grieved. It makes him even more dear. His whole, undivided heart shines through him. Of course she loves him.

Edmund comes eventually and there is a conversation, if the term can be used to describe the exchange. By now the crew has learned the moods of the Just King. It only takes a few minutes for the poop deck to mysteriously empty.

They stand side-by-side at the railing. He says only what she expects to hear, so very cautiously. It is difficult all the same. Lucy speaks to the sea, Edmund to his hands.

“Lu, I – ”

He begins again. “You know I would begrudge you nothing. But he is King of Narnia; the future of the kingdom is where his duty lies. Caspian should look to that.

“You know… you know what Aslan told the others. You know what awaits us at the edge of the world.

“Would you so aggrieve his heart?”

A long silence follows, filled with the roar of the wind.

“Oh, Edmund,” she tells the sea. “You’re right of course. He’s much better off without me.”

She seizes his wrist suddenly and his head jerks up, caught in the intensity of her gaze. Her eyes are the same blue as the water below.

“When we left Narnia – ” he knows at once that she means the first time, the hunt for the Stag, the end of their lives there – “would you have changed anything, after all? Are you glad you had those days free and full of life?”

It’s madness. _Of course!_ he wants to shout. By the Lion, if they had known! They would have secured the succession, chosen a regent for the safeguarding of their country. Left instructions, rewritten dozens of laws, looked to the future as best they could. Bade goodbye to the ones they loved.

Lucy’s eyes soften pleadingly. _Are you glad you had those days?_

He knows what she means. And in a small way, he is.

It _was_ a mercy – not to those left behind – but to the four of them. They never knew the ending hanging over their heads; England had been forgotten. Edmund had a whole life without fear, rooted firmly in the land that was his home. He had lived freely, loved wildly, given himself completely to his passions and pursuits, serving Narnia with his whole heart.

Leave it to his sister to defend the method of their greatest loss.

 _How selfish to joy in that_ , he thinks. But Lucy’s eyes are earnest, sincere, and in the end he says nothing at all.

Edmund has words with Caspian after that, or so she assumes. There is a cooling of sorts. No more kisses; but his eyes still look, and so do hers. Nothing at all has changed.

If anything it is an awakening of sorts. She is reminded now even more of her freedom. She recalls the life awaiting her in England, where she will dwindle again to the schoolgirl Lucy Pevensie. Here the Valiant Queen is so much more; relentless and passionate, fully realized.

She thinks of Peter and Susan. _You'll understand when it comes to your last time._

Would they have made different choices, if they had known?

At night, alone, she thinks of Caspian’s smiles. Where will she ever meet another who knows the truth of her so completely?

Her heart knows the answer. It always has.

**Author's Note:**

> Um. You are reading a pared down version sans smut. I will probably add it back in when I get the nerve.


End file.
